Lady is a Lion
by CompYES
Summary: One would think the movies would prepare her for something like this. (In which the movies did jack for her, so the Jaegar Academy it is.)
1. Our Days in the Sun

**Chapter One: Our Days in the Sun**

* * *

_She used to watch movies all the time. It was an easy way to lose herself. Work, school, family. Past and future. Didn't matter. Who cared when the plot unfurled and all she was obligated to care about was movies with sappy heroines or gratuitous violence and explosions, and how they almost always failed the Bechdel Test. Movies opened up new worlds, with new sights and sounds and thoughts and feelings._

_One would think the movies would prepare her for something like this._

_Though, who could've possibly guessed there was a whole other world down under the sea?_

_Who the hell would've called sea monsters over mermaids being down there?_

_(Maybe the Japanese, with their God damned Godzilla, but really?)_

* * *

Everyone's story seems to begin with K Day.

K-Day is not where her story begins. It is simply a fixed point in her life, just as it is in many others.

There are many beginnings.

Birth, in sunny California, to Antony Nabel and Lorena Marcelo. The year is 1992.

Every moment after is a beginning. She starts to walk and run, however, the minute she starts to read, a lot of that stops since she prefers plopping down somewhere with a book. She starts to explore, and though she never leaves California, she still feels like she has gone far. She starts college and is just about ready to begin the rest of her life.

Then there's K-Day. Then there's the war.

Most don't know it's going to be a war at first. They all think it's done after Trespasser's skull is put in a museum. The minute she can, she blows up any form of communication she has to contact anyone and everyone she has ever known. She gets status updates in trickles. Some of them tell her they're alive, well or not well. Many, too many, never tell her anything.

An old high school classmate, an unambitious but brilliant hacker who'd dropped out of college and took up dock work, keeps talking to her even when others withdraw. It starts small.

_Where were you? Where are you?_

_Did you lose anyone?_

_How are you?_

_What are you doing?_

It's like they're old friends even though they were never friends before. In fact, he's the guy who'd dumped one of her friends leaving her to console the weeping girl for weeks. But it's surprisingly easy to keep talking, and she can sense that he needs this as the news from the outside world grows worse. On good days, they cackle as they trade old school stories, like they're still stupid teenagers who gossip about that kind of stuff. On bad days, she talks about the people who never tell her anything and he talks about what he must endure.

And then one day, she finds out that he's gotten up to his old tricks again. Almost a year and a half after K-Day, there is an email without a sender in her inbox with a dozen files attached. It only takes reading through one or two and seeing the redacted lines they are to realize that this material was never meant for her eyes. (Or his.) Does that stop her from reading?

Not at all.

Already read one document too many. Terms like kaiju and kaiju blue are familiar, blazing across the news constantly since the day they'd been coined. It was terms like "jaegar" (_hunter_, her father's voice whispers in her mind) and "shatterdome" and "drift" that had her hooked. Someone had done it. Someone had found a way to fight back. To hunt the monsters.

_She doesn't realize it._

.

All she knew was that every word read sent a thrill through her. It carried her through the rest of the week as she quietly started preparing. One bag packed and tucked away from prying fingers. Withdrawal paperwork signed and left with the registrar. Promise secured from the neighbors next door and some good friends of hers to look in on her mother and brother.

Finally, on the last day of the week, she braced herself with her bag slung over her shoulder and went to tell her family that she's leaving. Three people scream in her face as she manages to calmly tell them that she loves them, she'll miss them, but she's going to Salinas whether they like it or not, so could they _please just hug her_ before she walks out that door?

Her mother is the only one that did, and she hugged as if hugging harder and longer would make her daughter leaving not real.

Then she was off, hitching a ride to the bay. She had his address scrawled on the back of her hand, not that she needed it to be anymore since the taxicab driver already has it punched into his GPS. It just ended up being something she could scratch at when she had nothing else to do but stare out the window and watch as the signs told her she's getting closer. She was scratching at her wrist even as she waited for him to answer the door. When he didn't, she felt a little foolish, because she really ought to have called to let him know she was coming. However, she wanted it to be a surprise, so she continued to wait it out. For almost three hours she waited for him, until she heard footsteps and looked up from her raw red hand. It's him.

He hadn't changed a bit and that almost made her jaw drop. They hadn't met in person since they started talking, and before that, not since graduation. It hadn't felt right, at least not until now. The way he was looking at her, he obviously didn't recognize her. Not really a surprise. It had been near five years and she'd grown out her hair, ditched her usual heavy coats thanks to the warmer Salinas weather, and her sunglasses were eating up half of her face.

She took the glasses off, and watched how confusion warred with distant recognition. So she stood, took a couple steps closer, and looked up into his face with a soft, teasing expression.

"Hey Tendo." She held her arms wide open. "Where's my hug?"

Her voice did it. In the next second, he stooped, his arms grasping around her middle as hers wind around his neck and shoulders, and they're holding each other tightly as he spins her.

"Dana Nabel," he said with a large grin as he put her down on her feet, "What are you doing in my neck of the woods, sister?"

She smacked his chest, before reaching up with both hands to fix his bowtie and smooth his hair down like she'd been doing it all her life.

He didn't stop her, so that was a win.

"You can't send me an email like that and expect me not to figure out what you mean by it."

"Dana…" he sighed, all of his good cheer fizzling out. "You can't stop me from doing it. You know-"

"Who said anything about stopping you?" she asked, one last touch to his hair and she was satisfied it was back to presentable.

"You, you aren't?"

"Nah," she told him, looking him straight in the eye, "I know what it means to you. But I can't let you go alone."

"You mean you want to come? With me?"

"Yeah, if you're alright with having a tagalong?"

If she thought he was being serious before, it had nothing on his serious face right then.

"Dana, I'd love it if you came, but are _you_ sure?" He looked a step away from mussing his hair back up. "I don't have anything or anyone left to stay for, to worry about what happens to me." His lips quirked in a grimace. "Well, except for you. You've got your family, and your college thing. What are you givin' that up for? It, it can't be for me."

"It's not you, I swear it's not," she promised him, "There needs to be a world for me to have those things. So trust me when I say I'm sure."

"Alright." Tendo sighed then smiles. "Alright then. I guess all I have to say now is, thank you."

She nodded before pushing him towards his door and giving him a meaningful look.

"So which shatterdome are you thinking we'll go to? There are gonna be two U.S. ones, right?" she asked him as he began pulling out his keys, tapping her chin thoughtfully, "Unless you're thinking of going to a foreign one? If so, I totally want to go to the one in Japan once it's built. If there will be one in Japan."

"Good lord, are you still that much of a Japanophile? I know you were into that anime stuff back in the day, but really?" He guffawed a bit and the door clicked open a second later. "Besides, if we were going to any shatterdome out of the United States, it would be Hong Kong."

"How come?" she asked, wrinkling her nose as she knelt to pick up her bag.

"He probably would've wanted me to see China at least once in my life," he murmured her wistfully.

That's all she needed to hear.

"Anyways, we're getting ahead of ourselves. We've got no military training between the two of us. That's why we're gonna to need to go join the Jaegar Academy first before we start doing any world saving stuff."

"Jaegar Academy?"

"Yeah," he smirked at her, "They're still in the process of getting the program off the ground. It'll be up and running by 2016."

"2016, huh? That's kind of a long time from now. What'll we do in the mean time?" She dropped her bag just inside the door as she closed it and followed him into his dinky kitchen. When he offered her a beer, she declined.

"We move to where the facility will be, wait until training begins."

"Okay. So where is this facility going to be?"

"Kodiak, Alaska," he mumbled back to her as he started rummaging through his shelves.

"Alaska? Wow, I applied to a college in Alaska you know? Almost went when they accepted me. Like, I would've gone and gotten a job as a snow shoveler to pay for my books and stuff and it would've been great except-"

"Except?"

"I thought about it for a while and realized I'd probably die in the snow. California weather is more for me."

"Hate to break it to you, but now we're heading to Alaska for real. Sure you can handle that?"

Dana huffed a laugh.

"Well, I'd like to think that at least now if I go, you can dig me out before I freeze to death."

"Who said I liked you that much, sister?"

She cocked her head at him, and he broke almost immediately.

They laughed, long and hard, and she pretended not to notice how rough the sound was for him. Eventually, he fed her and got her set up on the couch. (They squabbled for a second over her taking the bed as the guest, but she shuts him down real quick on that front.) Later that night, they sat together on his bed hunched over their laptops, looking up the cost of plane tickets to Alaska, figuring out how they'll live while waiting to apply to the Academy.

Tendo dropped off first because he'd been at work all day so he was already tired when she arrived. Tentatively, she tucked him into bed and kept browsing for potential Alaskan job opportunities until she succumbed to her own exhaustion some hours later. As she dragged herself to the couch, she finally took time to think about all the crazy things she had just done.

Quit school. Left home. Essentially moved in with a guy she barely knows (and yet knows too well).

Made plans to go to Alaska where she'd either die in the snow or start attending the giant robots equivalent of Hogwarts.

(Or something like that.)

Maybe this was all dream?

Maybe she'd know in the morning.

* * *

_She doesn't realize this is the beginning._

* * *

Nana: First, anyone who reads my other stories, yes I know, I've started another thing, I am sorry, but suppressing bunnies has proved anti-helpful to my writing process so I'm just letting it flow now. Second, for all of you brave enough to venture into an OC story, be warned, if you're coming for shmoopy or dramatic romance right away, this story isn't what you're looking for. I'm out to explore character relationships before any romance ever starts cropping up. That said, there will be romance and there will probably be slash (male/male and female/female), so if that's not your cup of tea, this is your warning to bail out now. Third, there's a good chance updates will be slow going, so I'm asking everyone to be patient with me on that. Lastly, I don't own anything but my OCs.

Now that that's out of the way, hope you enjoyed and that I haven't scared all of you away! If anyone at any point thinks I'm doing canon wrong, let me know! And, before I wrap up this terribly long AN, if you're looking for a good PR OC fic, I highly recommend _We Were Gods _by BeyondTheHorizonIsHope and _Edge of Our Hope _by Darth Rapture.


	2. Swimming with Water Wings and Sharks

**Chapter Two: Swimming with Water Wings and Sharks**

* * *

_**From** Dana Nabel_

_**To** Me_

_**Subject** Are you there?_

_Tendo,_

_I don't know if you remember me, but my name is Dana, and we went to high school together. We actually did a project for physics together, which is why I still have your email. I know this is really weird but, with the attack, could you please just let me know if you're okay? That's all I want, to know someone is okay. Please._

_Sincerely,_

_Dana Nabel_

_._

_**From** Tendo Choi_

_**To** Me_

_**Subject** Re: Are you there?_

_Hey,_

_I'm alive. I remember you._

_What about you? Where are you? How are you doing?_

_Tendo_

.

**Kodiak Island - June 21, 2016**

"How?" Tendo groaned into Dana's shoulder.

"How what?" she shot back at him, letting him further shove his face into the crook of her neck as she slung her arm around his waist.

"How can you be so awake right now?" he mumbled, the faux fur lining of her coat tickling his nose, "You didn't even have any coffee before we left."

"I don't need coffee."

"No, you're a philistine who drinks dirty leaf water."

"It's tea, Tendo, it has caffeine, too. And one of these days, I'll find a blend you'll actually like."

"If Yeye could never find one, I doubt you could."

She didn't say anything, just wriggled the fingers that were resting on his hip up and down his side.

He knew she was smiling when he started huffing into her neck. Jerk. It really wasn't fair that he was ticklish when she wasn't. Even as he writhed and choked off undignified squeals into her side, he let himself smirk, knowing he'd won the latest battle for coffee over tea. A sigh of relief passed through his lips when she finally let up. Feeling slightly more awake after the surprise tickle attack, he stood up a little straighter. Of course, after another second, he simply moved so he was standing behind her, slumping into her back with his arms circling her and his chin hooked over her shoulder.

"So what've we got, babe?" he asked, peering through half lidded eyes at the rest of the crowd they were sharing space with.

"Don't call me babe," Dana muttered distractedly as she stared hard at a man and a woman sloppily kissing each other without a care for anyone else in the room, making some of their neighbors nearby shuffle nervously away.

"You think they'll be good candidates?"

"Kind of, maybe."

"Yeah?"

"Lack of embarrassment about public physical intimacy with one another is a good sign," she explained, "Those papers you got for me say that embarrassment is bad. Embarrassment about things like intimacy and sex makes you want to pull away, hide from your co-pilot. It's the opposite of what you want in the drift. Interviews from failed test cases usually said it was because at least one person in the pair wasn't comfortable enough to share their most embarrassing thoughts and memories with another person."

"Why 'kind of, maybe'?"

"Hmm?"

"Why is your grade for them a maybe instead of a definitely?" he asked, peering at the couple again.

"Couples are unpredictable. There can be a lot of secrets and insecurities there. Passion and comfort isn't the same as trust, as drift compatibility. In Dr. D'Onofrio's words, 'Drifting usually breaks, not makes, bonds if they're not already strong.'"

"Alright. So, like you said, maybe." Tendo drew his eyes away from the couple and started searching for pairs. "Any possible definitely's then?"

"Them."

Dana pointed at two men, more like boys it seemed, once he got a closer look at them. Fair haired, blue eyed, tall, with jackal smiles. Definitely related. They seemed fairly relaxed as they chatted, laughing at some shared joke and glancing at other people occasionally. Before he could ask her to elaborate on why, Dana was already pointing another set of people out.

"Them, too. "

Following her finger, he found a woman and a man, close to the same age as him and Dana. Coal black hair and brown eyes the both of them. The woman exuded an aura of quiet confidence, and it seemed to wrap itself around her less confident companion, bolstering him some. They looked to be having a quiet conversation, the man speaking more as the woman nodded or shook her head in response.

His gaze darted between the two pairs, and then scanned the crowd for anyone else who stood out to him like they must have stood out to his friend. No one else did. He wondered idly, if she hadn't pointed them out in the first place, would he have even seen what she had seen? Probably not.

Most studies he'd hunted down, published and unpublished, on drift phenomena were interesting but only in the sense that it helped him understand how the drift affected jaegar piloting. He was more easily distracted by examining simulator coding, specs for nuclear power sources, and blueprints for the prototype of the new Mark III. What was interesting to him was utterly fascinating, to the point of obsession, to Dana. Which, honestly, wasn't surprising. Girl had been a psychology major when she'd been doing the college thing after all.

He'd even caught her doodling hearts around the name of infamous drift specialist Dr. Caitlin D'Onofrio, when she thought he wasn't looking. Whenever he wanted to have a little fun, he'd tease her about her fangirl crush.

"So what about us?" He grinned, snuggling her playfully. "Where do we fit on your potential drift compatibility grading scale?

"For now, we're a decent maybe." She took a deep breath. "It may be that we're not drift compatible, or even drift capable period. Or that our bond may not be as strong in comparison to others. But I know it's there, and even if we don't make it, we won't be one of those statistic breaks. We can stay in the PPDC, work in jaegar tech. Together."

She leaned her head to his so their temples touched and let it rest there. Sappy girl. Words weren't really offering themselves up, so instead he smiled pressed back into it. A moment of silence passed between them, even as the sounds of thousands of disjointed pieces of conversation floated past them.

Just as the silence seemed like it would lull between them forever, he thought of something to say.

"What if only I end up in jaegar tech and you end up in, dare I say it, kaiju science?" he joked, poking her collarbone.

"Then, obviously we'd have to stop hanging out immediately," she deadpanned back, pinching the hand the offending finger belonged to, "What would my new kaiju science colleagues think of me if they knew I was hanging out with a jaegar tech grease monkey?"

"I see how it is, no loyalty," he sniffed, "See if I ever download any movies for you ever again."

"Don't even play that game with me, Choi-boy," she laughed, "You keep me from my movies and you'll never get any of your favorite hair gel and coffee ever again."

He almost whimpered. Almost. It was a really close thing. Instead, he grunted at her, flicking her collar bone.

"So, speaking of movies, once we get assigned to where we're supposed to sleep, can we watch one? Tonight's supposed to be movie night."

Today was a Tuesday, so yeah, it was. However, it wasn't likely that they'd be able to get together tonight and go through with their usual tradition. He was only guessing, educated guessing but guessing nonetheless, that there would probably be dormitories separated by sex and curfews imposed to keep them in those dormitories. If Dana was expecting a movie night tonight, she'd better not hold her breath.

"Maybe," was all he chose to say.

The way she twitched let him know she wasn't satisfied with his noncommittal answer. Tough for her. She'd probably be a little irritable in the days following once she realized movie night wasn't happening as planned, but he'd find a way to make it up to her. The Academy probably had free days, they could watch her precious Miyazaki movies then.

"We should invite people." He hummed questioningly. "To the movie night, whenever it happens."

"You want to invite people?" He glanced sideways at her.

"If it's okay with you?"

"I guess it's alright." Tendo flicked his fingers absently, feeling the rosary swinging on his wrist. "I mean, it's not like I'd mind. You really want people to join us?"

"Yeah. Need to build my web here."

He nodded, his chin bumping her shoulder each time. Certain habits both of them had before, had evolved post K-Day. They'd just been two twenty somethings, one who liked to play chicken with cyber security systems and the other one who diligently developed personal and professional networks at college. There was a lot that could be done with habits like those when used right in a post-apocalyptic world.

After all, there was a reason why he and Dana could still get their hands on luxuries like hair gel and quality tea and coffee.

"Gotcha. I'll see what I can do about finding a good place and time for this thing to happen."

He could sense her gearing up to say something else, but she was cut off by a loud sound booming through the room. Everyone else in the auditorium began turning to face the stage where someone in a uniform had just gone to take the podium. The love birds from before broke apart from each other so they could pay attention, and Tendo and Dana followed suit, though they remained standing close. The man at the podium called again for everyone's attention and then introduced a man to his left as a Marshal Stacker Pentecost, head of the Jaegar Academy.

A ripple went through the audience at the name. Tendo could feel even Dana stand a little straighter at his side. The name Stacker Pentecost was well known, even to people who didn't have the kind of information he and Dana did. He and his partner had piloted Coyote Tango, served two tours, been deployed twelve times, and bagged about three kills and assists total including the recently dispatched Onibaba. The man was a badass.

What few others in that room besides himself and the girl at his side realized was that if not for the man on stage, there could've been no Jaegar Program, no defense for humanity.

The man took the podium, the large banner with the insignia of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps looming behind him. As he began to speak, all the frantic whispering died with the calm thunder of his voice.

"_This isn't summer camp. If it seems like we're trying to break you, it's because we are. The kaiju won't hold back, so neither will we."_

He felt Dana take his hand. After a beat, he squeezed it.

"_We will grind you to dust, and only when we fail to do so will we find the stuff of legend - like the D'Onofrios and the Gage twins - and all those whose names will live forever for having what it takes to be the knights of our time, standing watch at the edge of our world - ready for the dragons beyond." (1)_

Yeah, those were shivers going up and down his spine.

The auditorium erupted in cheers. He and Dana remained silent, watching that far away figure at the podium staring grimly out at his audience. Most of these people didn't realize that the marshal meant every word. Many of the eager faces here today would either wash out of the program entirely or get shunted off into some alternate branch of the PPDC. Even with the stolen advantages they'd come with, there was no promise that he or his partner were going to do any better. Dana had practically said as much when she'd been sizing up their competition.

They exited the auditorium subdued, and when it was time for them to split for dormitory assignment, he couldn't make his fingers release hers. Gently, she coaxed him finger by finger to let go. Just before they fully broke contact, she took a minute to tug at his collar and poke at his hair.

Was it weird that her fussing made the strange melancholy that had settled over him start to dissipate?

They shared quick smiles and then finally went their separate ways.

He spotted the two kids and the other guy that Dana had pointed out, the definitely's, and nodded a bit to himself. _Gotta start somewhere_, he thought, and ambled over.

* * *

**Nana:** Welcome back. Looks like I took two months. Ew. Anyway, lots of stuff going on in this snippet. The Marshal was our most obvious guest star, but I shall award cookies to the person who picks out some of the others. Here's a hint: there are actually four. As for Stacker's stats, the kills, and the dormitories and curfews and stuff? Fudged because I just have no idea. I've also taken and will continue to take a lot of liberties with drift theory. Hopefully, I'll make sense. And notice how the chapter is suddenly in Tendo POV? POV changes will happen a lot.

Other comments on the chapter:

(1) Taken word for word from Stacker's speech in the graphic novel prequel to the movie Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero. A lot of this chapter (and some of the last) references this work. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Pretty much the reason why this fic has Tendo as such a central character.

Lastly, I will leave you with a question: What are your thoughts on Yancy Becket? (His character is a bit difficult for me to pin down...)


End file.
